'Immersion'It's not a question of overt positivity here on this forum - there are other places which are much more like that, it's more sometimes there's no point in being negative just for the sake of it, just keep it to yourself. I have to 'bite my tongue' at times, as I am a far from positive person myself.

Of course, everyone is entitled to post whatever they want, irregardless. But on the subject of technical stuff, I'm of the mind that listening to other people's experiences can be a useful thing. It's great that you're very enthused about these things though.

but the fact that I have been wake for our 25 hours now makes me feel kind of aggressive easily irritated and even more pessimistic, otherwise I would describe my person as manic depressive person I have no diagnosis, this is my only my personal introspective opinion, if I would go and get a diagnosis I would probably get something like that, but on the other hand who does not have a diagnosis today ? All people should have labels on their forehead nowdays..

My emotional state is kind of an roller coaster, I would not call mood swings, I have periods but it can go fast too, from an artistic standpoint I see this as a gift as music is about expression emotion I can express both darker emotions and more lighter, this roller coaster does help that, my music taste also reflect this, I can go to listen to new age to death metal, to ambient to funeral doom metal to more uplifting music. I like to keep some kind of balance.

2005 I did start listening to steve roach music, it was basically to me, more like therapy a medicine, it did give me a sense of well being, and a certain sense of "hope" (for the future).It was away to get away from all these dark emotions and dark destructive music I was listening to all the time, steve roach music really helped to balance my brain, instead taking any pills, I would never eat pills like that...I prefer real feelings.. But steve roach music was really like psychoactive drugs... meditation made me open up my sense and dream away and visualize things when listening to it... like an inner film in my head...Meditation was an important discovery for me..

Personally I know really what is missing in my life, that would change everything but I keep that too myself.. as I feel it is personal.

'Immersion'It's not a question of overt positivity here on this forum - there are other places which are much more like that, it's more sometimes there's no point in being negative just for the sake of it, just keep it to yourself. I have to 'bite my tongue' at times, as I am a far from positive person myself.

Of course, everyone is entitled to post whatever they want, irregardless. But on the subject of technical stuff, I'm of the mind that listening to other people's experiences can be a useful thing. It's great that you're very enthused about these things though.

yes well I am afraid I am like that as person, I have a more critic eye especially on new hyped products or synths with different advertisements tricks to prove that it is the most revolutionary thing in the world it has this new Superior audio engine or this super new synthesis with some really cool scientific name bla bla bla

All I am saying is that most synth makers have wrong focus today, focus on the basic elements of the synth good osc, good filters, not finding cheap shortcuts for everything.

The focus is really about anything but what comes in your ear the pure sound..They put all this energy to come up with new ideas instead of focusing on the most important part... it is because of they think they cannot sell a synth that only sounds good, it most have good new "revolutionary" ideas that some one else have not tried... such as using ipads or put a ssd hardrive in a hardware synth with software and digital samples on ssd... and other nonsense...

Well I think they are wrong...people are still crazy in old analogue synth.. yet all new synths are mostly virtual analogue because of cost reasons..in some cases they might have analogue filter with this naive thinking that digital OSCs sounds as good as analogue, it is such a dramtic difference between digital and analogue OSCs... Prophet 12 is such a good example... Everything is amazing about that synth but no one is impressed with the sound, it sounds like software synth nothing special.. Dave call his best synth is carrier, is it function wise ? if he means sound wise I would be very worried about his hearing... prophet 5 is in an totally different league..

Thanks for the words Pete......not going anywhere, just needed some air.

Immersion.....its wonderful that you are able to express your emotions openly here on this forum and I respect that I just want us to be able to focus on the topic at hand.....

So on that note the Nonlinear lab prototype looks to me like it might have the format of the old Roland Alpha Juno which was actually the first analog synth I owned. All the editing had to be dialed in with that big "alpha dial" on the left and viewed in that tiny screen. The Nonlinear synth seems to have 2 large dials and a plethora of buttons. Speculation of course but maybe what actually was a bad design by Roland could be a good one for a software base hardware synth. Most musicians today are comfortable with the external Akai like push button controllers so entering data and edits via a large selection of buttons might makes sense.

Immersion said "moog is the only synth that sounds good without sound processing"

That's crazy.

I don't think there is a way a synth should sound, and there are no sounds that are better than others. It is a matter of choosing sound sources that appeal to you and that you feel like working with. You might want to just bang old tin cans with a stick and mic the result, you might prefer using analog synths, you might really like romplers with a very rich (or very thin and grainy) sample set, or you might prefer a particular type of digital synth, like additive. Whatever. What sounds "good" is not a thing set in stone by Moog, it is whatever one prefers to hear and to work with, to sculpt. It is what excites you. What is beautiful to you.

This totally reminds me of gearslutz now. A product is not out yet, has no published specs and no one has heard it...but it must suck! Ha ha really?!?

Synths are such a personal thing there is NO way to really label one good or bad. The minute I say oh that synth sucks or I hate soft synths or ipad synths or what ever, I usually have to eat my words because I will end up at a music festival or hear an album done with one of the offenders and it will blow me away.

Synths are instruments and their success or failure is in the musician. Now one may not resonate with you, but thats ok. Does not mean it sucks.

Can you tell a guitarist that a strat is better than a tele is better than a les paul??? No. Is Fender better than Gibson or PSR or Rickenbacker??? No its all preference based on sound, feel, brand loyalty and more.

Every time I have bought a synth based on what I hear others doing with it, I am usually disappointed...that is unless and/or until I take the time to dig into it and make it my own.

As to synth manufactures, a huge factor for them comes down to one thing most of the time and thats "who will buy this, and how many will I sell?" Its that simple.

So its awesome in these rare times when someone says, "hey I'll try something new!" maybe it will succeed, maybe it will never get off the prototype stage or maybe the technology gets absorbed into a future model, but its still cool.

I can't wait to see what this one turns into as the guy has a great track record.

Logged

"I liken good ambient to good poetry ... enjoyable, often powerful, and usually unpopular" APK

Immersion said "moog is the only synth that sounds good without sound processing"

That's crazy.

I don't think there is a way a synth should sound, and there are no sounds that are better than others. It is a matter of choosing sound sources that appeal to you and that you feel like working with. You might want to just bang old tin cans with a stick and mic the result, you might prefer using analog synths, you might really like romplers with a very rich (or very thin and grainy) sample set, or you might prefer a particular type of digital synth, like additive. Whatever. What sounds "good" is not a thing set in stone by Moog, it is whatever one prefers to hear and to work with, to sculpt. It is what excites you. What is beautiful to you.

of course there is no golden rule as always. Each to their own. but I know many share my opinion as in many cases I have a ability to exaggerate things little bit too much some times. Well it is my highly personal opinion anyway, I know many people are with me, that most synths are useless without proper processing to make them shine... For me the Oberheim Xpander was totally useless without processing. But it is when you put all these nice beautiful analog sound under the magnifying glass and process it it sounds amazing.

The same goes with internal effects on synths, I do not find them useful since I have better external effects... Anyway my point is you can make almost any synth good with proper processing.

Moog does not need any processing, it sounds fat and good without anything it is quite alone in that. a lot of synths depend on internal effects.

This totally reminds me of gearslutz now. A product is not out yet, has no published specs and no one has heard it...but it must suck! Ha ha really?!?

Do not believe the hype until you see it , I am more interested in synths that push the quality of sound instead of focusing on all other crap. If you want to believe the hype of all "new" then be my guest. but especially with synths I know each year more crap of the same is released.

I find this quest for mediocrity fascinating by the way, you must really like to swim in these waters... as I Told earlier if you did listen, you can make even a bad synth sound good, with right processing, but it is nothing to be fascinated about a synth with mediocre sound, should we applaud them and be hyped over that ? All I am saying I think the synth market is doing a really bad job, when synths 25-30 years ago sounds better then today for instance. Synths today have become more advanced flexible and easier to control and program but the pure sound of OSCs and Filters etc have gone backwards I am just huge disspointed with the development in general, it is all about fooling people to buy their products now days, with different advertisement tricks to manipulate us to believe how revolutionary it is. A lot of people today live in the illusion that the newest synth is the best, while the only reason it might sound better is because of more high quality internal effects.

So to summarize there have no real development with synths the last 25-30 years when it comes to the sound of ocs and filters etc, the development is more about making it possible to control synths in a digital way..and that is very important I think..I would personally not want a synth that is not digitally controlled, I want a hybrid synth. For that reason I think I would not go bad to 25-30 years, people buy these old synths because of the pure sound, also that old synths tend to often be more perform friendly often more knobs, todays synths has this quest to have as few knobs as possible and all modulation "magic" should be done with this magic mod wheel which you can "put up and down"

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Synths are such a personal thing there is NO way to really label one good or bad. The minute I say oh that synth sucks or I hate soft synths or ipad synths or what ever, I usually have to eat my words because I will end up at a music festival or hear an album done with one of the offenders and it will blow me away.

once again almost all synth can be made to sound good, to a certain level, most synthscan be made to make music... that is not my point... I am just against this quest of medicore sound and let people fooled by all this superficial stuff,

Synths are instruments and their success or failure is in the musician. Now one may not resonate with you, but thats ok. Does not mean it sucks.

well it is true to a certain limit, but at the same time you exaggerate. The limit is based on what sound you are after, not every synth can capture the soul of another synth, especailly not a digtal synth that tries to sound analogue . As I said to a certain limit your statement is true. I have only comes close to the sound xpander with soft synths, I come close enough but it still sound different, without doubt. So the sound of these OSCs and Filters does matter... just a musicians thinking power will not change these laws. Of course in digital land it is easier... but virtual analogue is more tricky.

Can you tell a guitarist that a strat is better than a tele is better than a les paul??? No. Is Fender better than Gibson or PSR or Rickenbacker??? No its all preference based on sound, feel, brand loyalty and more.

You are right, totally right here, about the guitars. Same goes with synths, but I would maybe not agree with the loyalty cause synth manufactures have done more radical changes during the years, a strat is still the same since the 60s but roland is not etc...same goes with all other synth manufactures.

Every time I have bought a synth based on what I hear others doing with it, I am usually disappointed...that is unless and/or until I take the time to dig into it and make it my own.

same...here.. well most synths are useful to make music, I am just against this hyping and this total "facination" of medicore sound, I use alchemy mostly for ambient, does it sound good ? no it sound total shit, but with my processing I have no problem to make it shine and sound good.. but should I hype this product and be very fascinating of it ? no.. takes a lot of effort to make it sound the way it does..

I just think we should have higher demands of synth manufactures.. especially on the sound.. it is just that they do not care about OSCs and Filters anymore cause they think all can be fixed with the internal effects and processing of the synth... this is just my opinon. of course I exaggerate and generalize too much there is always exceptions but I look at the market as a whole and most important what all the big synth manufactures has been doing the last years.

As to synth manufactures, a huge factor for them comes down to one thing most of the time and thats "who will buy this, and how many will I sell?" Its that simple.

So its awesome in these rare times when someone says, "hey I'll try something new!" maybe it will succeed, maybe it will never get off the prototype stage or maybe the technology gets absorbed into a future model, but its still cool.

I can't wait to see what this one turns into as the guy has a great track record.

yes it is good with new ideas, unfortunately the sound quality comes always last in the develop process of synth.. ideas comes first... cause new ideas sells more, cause people get fooled by the new cool things and that it is the "latest thing"...

think in a lot of ways...they are just trying to fool people to buy their products.. in many cases it is like that.. it is still a quite small nish market with the people who demand really high quality oscs and filter sounds etc..so if Roland would make an really good sounding but "boring" basic synth it would probably not sell in enough numbers and would probably be more expensive to produce because of the analogue sound chain. Cash Is king.

Immersion said "moog is the only synth that sounds good without sound processing"

That's crazy.

I don't think there is a way a synth should sound, and there are no sounds that are better than others. It is a matter of choosing sound sources that appeal to you and that you feel like working with. You might want to just bang old tin cans with a stick and mic the result, you might prefer using analog synths, you might really like romplers with a very rich (or very thin and grainy) sample set, or you might prefer a particular type of digital synth, like additive. Whatever. What sounds "good" is not a thing set in stone by Moog, it is whatever one prefers to hear and to work with, to sculpt. It is what excites you. What is beautiful to you.

Well I agree.. it is a personal preference I never said otherwise...but whenever a new synth is realsed the thing that interest me does they take synthsis to any new sonic level ? or has all this been done 1000 times before ? A lot of synth lack a personal character, the tragic development is that in many newer synth it is its internal effects that form the synth character and without it sounds like any other synth. I like synths with an unique distinct sound.

But hard to find the perfect synth.. as I said I use alchemy I have a hate and love relationship with it... I just do not know any good alternative with it that makes it so easy and flexible for ambient music to morph real time stuff,... and most importantly you can add your own sounds... as I have said before I wish Omnisphere had the alchemy GUI and the ability load your own samples it would be wonderful, or Lush 101

Immersion...who are you actually talking to because it sounds like its yourself. Your diatribe has nothing to do with with any of the musicians here who are very critical about the sound quality of the synths, software or hardware, that they use to create music with. Statements like "for me the Xpander was totally useless without processing".....good thing you put "for me" beforehand. Can I assume you are talking about ambient music or just generally. The Xpander/M12 does sound really good through a "lost in space" FX but this sort of processing is something found in our genre of perhaps soundtrack work. What about all the other music where an Xpander has been used and often with minimal processing because that was what the music may have needed. And tell me please who uses a synth totally dry.

In all of your comments you are have left out the most important thing.....how does it sound in the mix, because that is what people will ultimately hear. If you are going to be scientific about it then be so. Dazzle us with findings.

As this is a thread about the future of synthesis so to speak, what do think.....where will it go.....what form will it take?

Immersion said to Paul: "I find this quest for mediocrity fascinating by the way, you must really like to swim in these waters... "

As you would say, Immersion, this sort of personal attack is "crap" and doesn't belong in this forum. I've learned from my practice as a lawyer that people only resort to ad hominem attacks when they can't hold up the substantive end of their argument.

Julio, what I've love to see is in the future is more of an integration of treatment of real-time acoustic sound sources (not just loops) with synthesizers within the same box. I guess Live does some of this, but I'd like to see some hardware synths take this on.

Normally I keep this kind of thing behind the scenes, but in this case I'd like to make known that Immersion has been warned about personal put-downs on the forum. I mention this openly so there's no question this kind of thing will not be tolerated.

Everyone is welcome to disagree with the ideas of others. What is not acceptable is condescension or rudeness, or especially personal put-downs.

Julio, what I've love to see is in the future is more of an integration of treatment of real-time acoustic sound sources (not just loops) with synthesizers within the same box. I guess Live does some of this, but I'd like to see some hardware synths take this on.

Forrest

I agree.....didnt the Korg Oasys system try and succeed from what Ive read to actually create acoustic instruments, not samples. The Oasys Keyboard is discontinued but the technology still exists.

Within software an oscillator could be anything and software is the future. The Hartmann Neuron was a fantastic step forward and that technology it still around. It made me laugh when people would complain that when you turned the Neuron on you could hear the computer boot up and disc drive spin.....nothings perfect.

I think its exciting times now and looks likely in the future.....modular synthesis is just going bonkers with new companies popping up all the time. Synths like John Bowen's Solaris are selling out every production run.

In the very near future people wont care if a filter is modeled after a Moog or an Oberhiem or an ARP, and actually I dont think people really do today. The Alesis Andromeda has just such physical modeling and the real programmers / players just got on and dug deep into the instrument to discover its unique character that has little to do with Moog's or Obie's. How many times have I read that the A6 sounds just like...well you kind of missed the boat if thats all thats worth commenting on the Andromeda.

So its awesome in these rare times when someone says, "hey I'll try something new!" maybe it will succeed, maybe it will never get off the prototype stage or maybe the technology gets absorbed into a future model, but its still cool.

I can't wait to see what this one turns into as the guy has a great track record.

Julio, physical modelling is cool, but I was thinking of something more basic--using the features of the new box to alter and mangle an acoustic instrument's signal, much like an effects device does, but with much deeper integration within the box's own architecture and processing capabilities. Something like this can be done in Audiomulch, but it takes a lot processing and memory that might cause things to lock up. Many years ago, I remember hearing what I thought was a synthesizer turn out to be an electric guitar processed through an ARP or a Moog. Within the digital realm, I could see the processing possibilities being potentially greater (things like spectral processing). It's fun to speculate.

Ok, I see what you mean Forrest. That would be exciting. It seems most hardware synth allow you to process external audio but only run it through the FX and or filters. I could see some deeper integration as you suggest, not just pass the signal but the signal become part of the synth as a building block or as an oscillator, almost more organic if that possible. Ive looked for such a thing but I dont think it exist....yet.

Following the original link, I saw the 'phase 22' engine under 'technology', which has evolved from Spark. I've found Spark to be a real odd one, like a lot of NI stuff, I don't think the presets are that interesting, but I'm sure it is. I feel the need to delve into it some more, I think my lack of understanding of the architecture of the synth is a factor here

Immersion said to Paul: "I find this quest for mediocrity fascinating by the way, you must really like to swim in these waters... "

As you would say, Immersion, this sort of personal attack is "crap" and doesn't belong in this forum. I've learned from my practice as a lawyer that people only resort to ad hominem attacks when they can't hold up the substantive end of their argument.

Julio, what I've love to see is in the future is more of an integration of treatment of real-time acoustic sound sources (not just loops) with synthesizers within the same box. I guess Live does some of this, but I'd like to see some hardware synths take this on.

Forrest

I take back the "you must like to swim in this waters. But people do not understand my sarcasm sometimes...it was not meant in away to put him down. Anyway I will try to not use as much unnecessary sarcasm that people might not understand in the right way.

My arguments where in the rest of the post, I stand by what I say. for months synths I use more then 60% rely on processing tools, so the question is should I be facinated over how good these synths sound ? I am not talking about reverb or delay or effects, but plugins like SPL twintube, tube saturator, fg-x things that gives a life to a dead synth sound with no interesting harmonics or details . People where complaining cause I have a negative opinion and that I think most synth sounds not good enough... well this is the reason... Not enough interesting analogue like harmonics just totally dead and boring sound.

If they put a real tube amp in every hardware digital synth maybe it would sound more organic and life like..Tubes can really bring a lot of magic in to the sound.

As it is now you can't create the sound you want from scratch directly in the synth, you rely heavily on other processing, a synth should not be like that and not talking about the internal effects now,

so you should be fascinated with the synths when 60-70% of the final sound is external sound processing ? I am not, but do I still consider synths useful, YES! but only 40-30% of the honor goes to the synth the rest goes my processing tools .

Am I misunderstanding you? You would prefer that the output of a synth be pre-processed?

I'd want any synth (digital or otherwise) to be as clean as possible, without any colouring or processing. That's the whole point of outboard effects: to shape the sound exactly how the musician wants it. If the output of the synth is already processed, you lose a lot of flexibility.

I am just against this hyping and this total "facination" of medicore sound, I use alchemy mostly for ambient, does it sound good ? no it sound total shit, but with my processing I have no problem to make it shine and sound good.

OK, lets make a practical test instead of talking too much

During the next days I will upload for you a 1 minute track on my server. I will try my best to make it sound like total shit….please download the file, process it with all your gear and make it shiny and good sounding as you mentioned. After that, please upload it on a file sharing site so anyone can download and hear the result.

I´m sure you won´t have any problems to do that!

I will provide you the file (link) soon - please be a bit patient as I have to prepare it first!

I am just against this hyping and this total "facination" of medicore sound, I use alchemy mostly for ambient, does it sound good ? no it sound total shit, but with my processing I have no problem to make it shine and sound good.

OK, lets make a practical test instead of talking too much

During the next days I will upload for you a 1 minute track on my server. I will try my best to make it sound like total shit….please download the file, process it with all your gear and make it shiny and good sounding as you mentioned. After that, please upload it on a file sharing site so anyone can download and hear the result.

I´m sure you won´t have any problems to do that!

I will provide you the file (link) soon - please be a bit patient as I have to prepare it first!

yes sure sounds like a fun idea Use some pad sound, hold in two notes for some time both a low end and a high end tone.